Unfortunately, your access has now expired. But there’s good news—by subscribing today, you will receive 22 issues of Booklist magazine, 4 issues of Book Links, and single-login access to Booklist Online and over 180,000 reviews.

Your access to Booklist Online has expired. If you still subscribe to the print magazine, please proceed to your profile page and check your subscriber number against a current magazine mailing label. (If your print subscription has lapsed, you will need to renew.)

Booklist Editors Recommend

My Ishmael.

Quinn, Daniel (author).

It’s no surprise to discover that Quinn’s previous philosophical novels, Ishmael (1991) and The Story of B , have attracted enough of a following to support a Web site (http://www.ishmael.org). His sage, Ishmael, is a wise and altruistic gorilla who sets himself up as a teacher for pupils who “have an earnest desire to save the world.” His sessions with one student are the subject of Quinn’s first novel, and now we meet another, Julie, a plucky 12-year-old. After getting over her initial shock at finding that her teacher is a gorilla, and after Ishmael recovers from his surprise at having a child seek him out, they get down to business, and what a dialogue they have! At one point Julie exclaims, “That’s an amazing way to look at it,” in response to one of Ishmael’s many clever fables about human culture, and this is the crux of Quinn’s intellectually dynamic tale: he uses a primate’s perspective to help us see ourselves and our role on the earth more clearly. Ishmael’s shrewd, often startling analysis revolves around the contrast between tribal cultures and the “cradle-to-grave security” they provided and our complex and contrary world, then spins off into provocative commentary on everything from schools to business. If there isn’t a revolution, the New Tribal Revolution to be exact, the gorilla-philosopher tells Julie, “it’s hard to imagine your living through another century.” Quinn’s intention is to stimulate discussion, and he succeeds. Unique as Ishmael is, he’s not the first ape protagonist: see Malamud’s God’s Grace (1982) and Peter Hoeg’s The Woman and the Ape (Reviewed September 15, 1997) Donna Seaman